Phylogenetic Analysis of the Haemagglutinin Gene of Canine
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Guo et al. Virology Journal 2013, 10:109 http://www.virologyj.com/content/10/1/109 RESEARCH Open Access Phylogenetic analysis of the haemagglutinin gene of canine distemper virus strains detected from giant panda and raccoon dogs in China Ling Guo1, Shao-lin Yang1, Cheng-dong Wang2, Rong Hou3, Shi-jie Chen4, Xiao-nong Yang5, Jie Liu1, Hai-bo Pan1, Zhong-xiang Hao1, Man-li Zhang1, San-jie Cao1 and Qi-gui Yan1,6* Abstract Background: Canine distemper virus (CDV) infects a variety of carnivores, including wild and domestic Canidae. In this study, we sequenced and phylogenetic analyses of the hemagglutinin (H) genes from eight canine distemper virus (CDV) isolates obtained from seven raccoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides) and a giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in China. Results: Phylogenetic analysis of the partial hemagglutinin gene sequences showed close clustering for geographic lineages, clearly distinct from vaccine strains and other wild-type foreign CDV strains, all the CDV strains were characterized as Asia-1 genotype and were highly similar to each other (91.5-99.8% nt and 94.4-99.8% aa). The giant panda and raccoon dogs all were 549Y on the HA protein in this study, irrespective of the host species. Conclusions: These findings enhance our knowledge of the genetic characteristics of Chinese CDV isolates, and may facilitate the development of effective strategies for monitoring and controlling CDV for wild canids and non-cainds in China. Keywords: Canine distemper virus, Haemagglutinin (H) gene, Genotype, Phylogenetic analysis Background of specialist traits and increased expression of generalist CD is caused by the canine distemper virus (CDV) which traits, thereby confirming its functional importance [10]. belongs to the Morbillivirus genus of the Paramyxoviridae The H gene has been used to investigate the genetic virus family. This virus infects a broad range of animals, relationships among the various strains [11-13]. On the such as Mustelidae (ferrets, minks, skunks, weasels, and basis of the full-length sequence of the H gene of CDV badgers), Procyonidae (raccoons), Ursidae (bears and strains identified globally, at least seven main geographic pandas), Viverridae (civets, genets, and linsangs), hyaenidae groups (genotypes) appear to circulate among the vari- (hyenas), and Felidae (lions and tigers) [1-7]. The gen- ous susceptible hosts, namely America-1, America-2, ome of CDV encodes the following genes: matrix (M), Asia-1 and Asia-2, Europe, Europe wildlife and Arctic fusion (F), hemagglutinin (H), nucleocapsid (N), poly- [14-17]. In addition, some CDV strains identified in Africa, merase (L), and phosphoprotein (P). The H gene protein Asia and Argentina [18-20] appear to diverge substantially is responsible for viral attachment to the cell host [8] and might represent separate geographic groups. and is the most variable protein described for all members N glycosylation has been shown to be important for of the genus Morbillivirus [9]. Experimental investigation the correct folding, transport, and function of other showed that changing one amino acid (Y549H) in the paramyxovirus fusion and attachment glycoproteins [21]. CDV-H protein of one dog strain can decreased expression There are significant molecular differences between the glycoproteins of wild-type and vaccine CDV strains. It has * Correspondence: [email protected] been hypothesized that reduced N glycosylation is an im- 1 ’ College of Veterinary Medicine, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya an, China portant attenuating factor and that an increase in N glyco- 6Key laboratory of Animal Disease and Human Health of Sichuan Province, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya’an, China sylation may eventually result in vaccine failure [15,22]. Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © 2013 Guo et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Guo et al. Virology Journal 2013, 10:109 Page 2 of 7 http://www.virologyj.com/content/10/1/109 Although the use of live attenuated vaccines has greatly helped to prevent CDV infections in susceptible animals, the dental abnormalities and enamel erosion that are found in many young and adult giant pandas [23,24] may be related to early infection with CDV [25,26]. Several episodes also have been reported in rac- coon dogs [20]. So in this work we analyzed a total of 7 samples from raccoon dogs with clinical signs of canine distemper and 1 sample from giant panda which were submitted to our laboratories and the viruses were ana- lyzed using a fragment of the H gene. Results CDV detection by NP-based RT-PCR We analyzed a total number of 108 samples taken from raccoon dogs with suspect of CDV infection. CDV RNA was detected in 56 out of 108 (51.8%) blood samples, most of the raccoon dogs, between the age of 15–30 weeks. Negative samples were assayed twice to confirm the results. Forty-one of the 56 posi- tive clinical specimens (73.2%) were obtained from raccoon dogs which had been vaccinated against CDV at least once. Twelve samples (21.4%) were obtained from unvaccinated raccoon dogs, and the vaccination status of the three remaining raccoon dogs was un- known. Forty-nine of the 56 positive animals (87.5%), showed symptoms typical of CDV, such as respiratory disease and neurological dysfunction, two raccoon dogs were asymptomatic, while no records were avail- able for the other five raccoon dogs. The giant panda showed a mild fever (anal temperature 39.0°C). Sequence and phylogenetic analysis of the H gene Amplification of fragments of the expected size was obtained with H gene and the sequences determined. After removing primer-derived sequences and some se- quences with inconsistencies at the 5’ and 3’ ends, a 594 bp-long fragment of the H gene were obtained. The neighbor joining tree (Figure 1) generated using a 594 base pair (bp) long partial sequences of the H gene (amplified with primers “B”), evidenced geographic Figure 1 Phylogenetic relationships among 73 CDV isolates patterns (genotypes) resembling the patterns described based on the amino acid sequences of the H gene. Distance previously using the full-length H gene (Asia 1, Asia 2, values were calculated by the ClustalW program within the MEGA Europe, Arctic, America1 and America 2). In the phylo- 5.0 software package. The Neighbor-Joining algorithm was used to genetic tree (Figure 1) all the Chinese wild-type viruses generate the tree. Bootstrap values were calculated on 1000 (8/8) grouped together in one branch in the Asia-1 replicates. Only bootstrap values >75% were shown. Filled quadrate (■) indicates the 8 Chinese wild-type CDV strains genotype. In this genotype, other Chinese CDV strains analyzed in this study. identified from domestic dogs or other wildlife species after the 1990s were also included, along with some Japanese and Korean strains detected before 1998. The 8 (Table 1). The 4 strains (Sichuan 02–05) displayed high Asia-1 strains displayed identity to each other in the H identity to each other (97.4-99.8% nt and 98.4-99.8% aa). gene (91.5-99.8% nt and 94.4-99.8% aa), while identity to On the other hand, although strain Sichuan06 appeared the vaccine strains CDV3, Onderstepoort and Lederle to belong to the main Asia 1 clade, it is more distant was lower (85.4-89.2% nt and 84.4-88.3% at aa level) from the group (Figure 1). Guo et al. Virology Journal 2013, 10:109 Page 3 of 7 http://www.virologyj.com/content/10/1/109 Table 1 Homology of nucleotide and amino acid sequences of CDV H gene Sichuan01 Sichuan02 Sichuan03 Sichuan04 Sichuan05 Sichuan06 Sichuan07 Sichuan08 CDV3 Onderstepoot Lederle Nucleotides(%) Sichuan01 93.1 94.1 94.9 94.9 94.6 98.3 98.0 86.5 85.4 86.7 Sichuan02 94.4 98.5 98.3 98.3 96.6 94.9 94.9 89.1 87.7 89.2 Sichuan03 95.0 98.4 97.4 97.4 94.6 95.2 92.1 87.7 86.5 88.0 Sichuan04 95.0 99.4 99.7 99.8 97.3 97.5 91.7 88.0 86.5 88.2 Sichuan05 95.0 99.5 99.6 99.8 97.5 97.7 91.9 88.2 86.6 88.5 Sichuan06 95.5 98.9 99.4 99.5 99.4 95.9 91.5 88.0 86.5 88.2 Sichuan07 99.8 94.4 95.0 95.0 95.0 95.5 93.9 88.0 86.4 88.3 Sichuan08 99.7 94.5 95.3 95.0 95.0 95.5 99.5 88.4 87.2 88.6 CDV3 86.0 86.6 87.2 87.2 87.5 87.7 86.0 86.4 96.1 99.0 Onderstepoot 84.4 84.9 85.5 85.5 85.7 86.0 84.4 84.7 93.9 96.0 Lederle 86.6 87.2 87.7 87.7 87.9 88.3 86.6 86.8 97.2 93.9 Amino acids(%) Analysis of the amino acid sequences of the H gene of responsible for relevant economic losses in Chinese fur in- wild-type CDV strains dustry [20]. In order to determine the frequency of this in- The inferred aa sequences of the partial H protein of fection, we analyzed the samples taken from raccoon dogs the 8 wild-type Chinese CDV strains and of vaccine with suspect of CDV infection. Our result revealed a rela- (America-1 genotype) strains were aligned.